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"Will you marry me?"
Sam didn't really consider himself an old fashioned kind of guy. He went to Stanford, after all, a school in one of the most liberal cities in the world. He campaigned for equal rights, was definitely not straight, and he had three tattoos and counting.
But even so. Even so. He figured that if he was ever going to get married, it would be preceded by a first date, a few dinners together, time spent as a couple. Perhaps he'd even live with the person to make sure that they were still good together when they had to spend a lot of time around each other.
He did not expect Gabriel Novak, a slightly eccentric art student who Sam had met at a party freshman year (they'd been the only two people to spend most of the night in the host's bedroom, petting the impossibly fluffy Yorkshire terrier who'd been locked away in there) to flop down beside him on the grass outside the humanities building and propose to him quite out of the blue.
"Uh-" Sam stuttered, because rejecting a proposal outright was rude, and his hesitation was entirely to do with politeness and in no way related to the small crush he'd had on Gabriel ever since their first meeting.
"I just got back from a meeting with my advisor," Gabriel elaborated, with a dramatic sigh. "And he said the school can't give me any financial aid except for unsubsidized loans - which I don't entirely know what they are but they don't sound good - unless I have a child, get married or turn 24."
"Right," Sam nodded, trying to make sense of this, still not quite understanding it at all. He closed his history book and put it down on the grass beside him, because he definitely needed to give Gabriel his full attention if he wanted to understand what the hell was going on here.
"And I can't have a child, that'll take too long, and unless you know any really good ways of aging myself three years overnight... getting married is literally the only sensible option here, Sammoose."
Sam rolled his eyes at the nickname, chuckling. "Could do with a better FAFSA application myself, I suppose."
He patted the space next to him, encouraging Gabriel to lie down and soak in the spring sunlight. He supposed he should be used to this kind of shit from Gabriel by now. After all, this was the same kid who had once walked all the way across campus to Sam's apartment at three in the morning in his pajamas so that he could knock on the door and ask, "Sam, Sam, if aliens are real, and if they come to Earth, what would they eat? Because I figure we probably don't have the right food to provide for aliens, right? Like, can you imagine an alien just sitting at a table, eating cereal?"
Yeah, a marriage proposal was not the strangest thing to come out of Gabriel's mouth.
"Wait, seriously?"
Gabriel hadn't moved from his original, slightly uncomfortable looking seated position. He was just holding his phone and staring at Sam.
"I mean, would you really do it? Cause I've been doing actual research on it."
He held up his phone to show Sam. It was open to some kind of official, legal looking page.
Sam stared at Gabriel. Holy fucking shit. Gabriel was serious. He was serious about... about marrying Sam.
For money, Sam reminded himself. He was a substitute for anyone else, the one person Gabriel had thought would be most likely to go along with his insane plan, or maybe just the first person he'd seen. Nothing more than that.
"Are we doing this? Because if so it's gotta be fast. I have to send off the FAFSA within the next couple of days cause if it turns out I can't come back for senior year, I need to figure out what I'm doing instead pretty damn fast, since I have no idea what else I'm any good at or even where I'd live, or..." Gabriel shrugged.
Sam watched him, saw the way Gabriel's eyes were so bright and alive when he was talking about the plan, only to have the light fade from them as he started to consider the possibility of not being able to come back. Sam's heart ached for him. He knew Gabriel hadn't had the easiest time in high school, growing up in a conservative part of Texas, and he couldn't imagine Gabriel anywhere other than Stanford. Sam also couldn't imagine Gabriel anywhere other than with him, but that was a whole other issue.
And if this was what it took to make it happen...
It wasn't like it was a big deal. Yeah, it was deceitful, but Sam wanted to be a lawyer. Lawyers were deceitful all the time and he would have to get used to it. And it meant Gabriel would be able to get an education that he really wanted, which Sam thought was important. And as soon as they graduated college, which was in barely over a year, they could get divorced and it would just be some kind of crazy story they told about their college days. Everyone needed a crazy story like that, didn't they?
"Give me that." Sam snatched the phone from out of Gabriel's hand to see what he'd been looking at. "I'm pre-law, I can figure all this stuff out."
"You don't trust me?" Gabriel scoffed. "You don't even trust your future husband to figure out the California marriage laws?"
Sam frowned, squinting at the tiny screen with its even tinier text, because apparently he still hadn't figured out how to use the zoom function. "Marriage is a partnership and it involves being aware of your strengths and weaknesses and combining them so that between you, you have more strengths."
Gabriel shifted closer to Sam so that their shoulders were brushing. "Oh really? What are my strengths, then?"
"Being an asshole. You're awesome at that," Sam replied instinctively, trying to decipher an oddly worded sentence.
Once he'd figured it out, he looked up. Gabriel was still staring at him hopefully.
"Fine. Real strengths. You're confident, you're good at talking to people without getting nervous, you're someone who people naturally want to listen to. You're kind of smart even if you don't always choose to make the most of that. You're good at making people laugh, you... uh... think outside the box and are good at finding creative ways to get what you want." He nodded down at the phone again. "Such as this. Maybe that's not so much of a strength."
Gabriel scowled, but even the scowl couldn't hide the blush coloring his cheeks.
Sam noticed it too. He noticed how especially pretty Gabriel was like that, his cheeks pink in the sun, trying to hide his smile, and he quickly changed the subject.
"I don't know how fast this can all happen, let me check..." Sam scrolled through the page, looking for the useful information in amongst all the babble. He felt like these kinds of things were probably things he should know, but he'd never known anyone else who was getting married. His brother had been dating the same guy exclusively since sophomore year of high school and yet the two of them firmly denied anyone's efforts to suggest that some kind of ceremony may be in order, so it had just never been relevant knowledge for Sam.
"Right, so from what it's saying here we need to get a marriage license, which coming from the San Francisco County Clerk's office would be $105. They prefer cash, and I know that's a lot, but compared to thousands of dollars of tuition next year, if we could scrape it together, I think it'd be worth it, yeah?"
Gabriel was nodding along as though this was a completely normal conversation to have. "Right, yeah, definitely an investment for our future."
"And then we'd need to file for our marriage certificate. I'm an ordained minister, but I don't know if I could file my own marriage certificate..." Sam frowned.
Gabriel snorted. "You're a what?"
"It's a really long story," Sam tried to wave it away. "You don't want to hear it."
"I think you'll find I do!" Gabriel leaped to his feet, his grin scarily big, maybe bigger than Sam had ever seen it before. "Come on! What are you wearing to our wedding? No, don't bother changing, you look great, you're fine, and we are going to the train station, and you are going to tell me this story on the train!"
Gabriel kept reading as the two of them waited on the platform for the train into San Francisco. "Dude, I am so excited about this. Sometimes people can even get FAFSA to pay for their apartments, they could hook us up with a really nice place near campus, we could cite needing to work on our relationship as reasons why we need a nice little place of our own, I bet we could swing it."
And Gabriel's excitement was kind of infectious, and Sam found himself getting excited too, so much so that he didn't mind sharing the crazy story about his high school graduation when he'd gone to his friend Jo's graduation party at her mom's bar and they'd all talked about their futures and someone, probably Ash though the memories were hazy by this point, said that he figured Sam would end up as some kind of minister and Sam had scoffed but someone had brought up an Internet page and one thing led to another and...
--
"So... uh... we should probably think about what happens after the marriage."
The train was trundling through the hills, and the initial adrenaline had worn off, leaving the two of them with heavier hearts as they started to worry about the reality of this snap decision, neither of them quite ready to back down but both of them terrified about what they were actually doing here.
Gabriel nodded. "By 'after the marriage', I'm guessing you mean... the divorce?"
"Yeah," Sam agreed unwillingly. He didn't want to think about divorcing Gabriel. As much as he didn't know a lot about marriage, he knew plenty about divorce, and in his experience it tended to be messy and nobody ended up coming out of it all that well. He didn't want that to happen to him and Gabriel. He didn't want what had been a perfectly good, relaxed friendship (if you could call 'we once hid in dryers in the laundry room for twenty minutes because Gabriel was running from campus security' relaxed) to turn into the kinds of arguments his parents had had when he was small.
"I've heard that if one partner commits adultery, that's grounds for a quicker divorce," Gabriel said with a shrug. "And honestly I'm perfectly happy to take one for the team here and cheat on you if it means we can get everything figured out okay."
He laughed, but Sam wasn't really laughing. He didn't like the idea of Gabriel cheating on him. He knew that it didn't actually count as cheating if he agreed to the plan, but even so, he felt oddly possessive of his fake husband and he didn't really want to share him - certainly not when the two of them had only been together for a couple of hours.
He tried to force these thoughts out of his head. Thinking about them being 'together' wasn't going to help either of them.
He opened his phone up and started looking into the California state divorce laws.
A few minutes later, Sam broke the silence again. "This sample form I'm looking at says 'irretrievable breakdown of marriage'. If the worst comes to the worst we might have to stage a fight, but honestly I think we're just allowed to say it's not working out and stick with that."
He supposed he had plenty of memories from the past, times where Gabriel had been ridiculously frustrating and annoying, to draw on if it did come down to it. He'd rather not use them.
"Does it include adultery?" Gabriel inquired, and Sam tightened his lips. Why was Gabriel so obsessed with the idea of cheating on him?
He shrugged, purposefully dodging the question, moving on to another site he'd found, searching for more information. Gabriel pulled out his own phone, and the two of them researched quietly together, Gabriel's foot hooking around Sam's ankle after they'd been silent for a few minutes, Sam not commenting and trying not to overthink it, telling himself Gabriel was just nervous about maybe having to leave school.
It was a while before Gabriel piped up, his voice flat. "I've got some bad news."
"What?" Sam's heartrate sped up and he leaned forward to listen, already hating the idea of anything that might interfere with their amazing plan. He was invested by this point; he had to make this work.
"Says here that the costs of divorce range between fifteen and thirty thousand dollars, but that most of that is spent on legal fees. We can't afford-"
"Fuck lawyers." Sam rolled his eyes. "We don't need a lawyer. I'm studying to be one, or at least I probably will be by this point, and I'll be able to read any really important documents. I mean, come on. It's not like we have kids or property to divide up or anything."
Gabriel perked up at that. "That's true, I guess that's the only reason we'd really need a lawyer."
Sam nodded, enthusiastic. "Yeah. We don't have alimony to negotiate! We're just, you know. Two guys being dudes. Getting a divorce."
"Exactly! Standard bro behavior," Gabriel agreed, the two of them smiling at each other a little too widely, their eyes a little too excited for something that was just a plan to get them through their last year of school without going into crippling debt.
--
The whole process was easier than they'd ever expected. Both of them were sure that somewhere along the way, somebody would stop them - announce that they were clearly faking this whole marriage and that they couldn't possibly be allowed to have a marriage license or certificate. Sam was sure it was obvious to the entire world around them that they weren't actually a couple. Plus, Sam knew that Gabriel barely knew how to make instant ramen without blowing up his entire kitchen - the guy definitely wasn't ready to get married, if he was being honest with himself here. Marriage was an adult thing, and surely the entire world could tell that they weren't adults, either?
And yet, everybody seemed to be fooled. And it was only a couple of hours later that the two of them found themselves outside, clutching all the relevant pieces of paper they needed to actually put this insane scheme into action.
"So, where do you want to do this?"
Sam shrugged. "We just need a witness, so, I guess wherever we are when we find a person who's willing to sign the marriage document for two random college dudes."
Gabriel shook his head. "Uh, no way. I'm not getting married in the middle of the street. I always figured my first wedding would be in, like, Hawaii or something. It at least has to be someplace romantic."
Sam fixed him with a stern look. He didn't even comment on the fact that Gabriel talking about his first wedding meant he'd always intended on getting married multiple times. Somehow this didn't really surprise him. Instead, he stuck with, "Do you want the financial aid money or not? I don't think you can really afford to be picky here."
"Honey. This wedding is for both of us. You do not get to make all the decisions."
Sam would have protested further, but he was completely thrown off balance by the nickname.
He was even more thrown off balance when Gabriel grabbed his hand and started tugging him in the vague direction of the street car. "Here. I know exactly where I want to do it."
Pier 39 was a tourist trap, but it was also more beautiful than Sam cared to admit. And he supposed that for a guy who had planned on getting married in Hawaii on the beach, this was probably the next best thing, where the two of them could still be by the sea, still have the ocean waves rippling around near them.
They made their way down past the rows of shops and restaurants to the end of the pier where they had the best view of the Pacific, and then the only thing left for them to do was to find a witness. This was harder than it seemed, because among the hundreds, maybe thousands of people milling about, it was difficult to pick out just one who seemed like they'd help out.
"We have to just do it. Go up to someone and ask."
"Fine," Gabriel shrugged, throwing his shoulders back, standing tall, marching up to the closest person. "Excuse me, sir, me and Sam-angel over there are just about to get married, would you please be our witness and sign our marriage license?"
The man frowned, but then folded over the top of his bag of donuts and tucked them under his arm. "Sure, why not?"
It was easy. It shouldn't have been easy. Something should have stopped them.
Nothing did.
--
It was six thirty on a sunny Friday afternoon at the end of April and Sam Winchester was standing on a San Francisco pier, about to get married. The very same morning he'd been taking notes in his criminal law class, all set to finish up his term paper at the weekend. He'd been expecting a normal day - homework, maybe a couple of hours relaxing with a book, maybe meeting up with some friends that night.
He hadn't expected to be here, watching the wind catch Gabriel's hair and send it cascading all around his face, trying desperately to think of some kind of wedding vows that would be appropriate for this situation.
He gazed out over the water. It wasn't as pretty as where he'd been looking before, so he looked back at Gabriel.
He cleared his throat.
"So... you want me to start?"
Gabriel smirked.
"This was your idea, you know. You should really start."
"I want to hear what you're going to say."
Sam rolled his eyes. "You know it's not too late for me to back out, right? I could just turn round, leave you on this pier
"Sam Winchester! I did not think you were the kind of man to stand up your bride at the altar. I'm disappointed in you."
At Gabriel's outraged words, Sam's mind conjured the image of Gabriel in a floaty white wedding dress (possibly with sparkles) and he blushed, hard, hoping Gabriel wouldn't suspect the true reason for it.
"Okay," he choked, trying to compose himself. "So, Gabriel, you're pretty cool. You know. You're not the kind of dude I'd usually be friends with, but I'm glad that we started hanging out. Cause I guess you helped me make the most out of college, and I was a lot more social than I would have been without you, and you showed me all the fun hidden spots on campus and got me involved in some organizations that I might not have tried out otherwise. So that was good of you. I guess what I'm saying is... I'll have less regrets, because of you. And I want to make the most out of senior year before I go off to law school, so I'd like you to be able to come back for it, because I think that's more likely to happen with you around. So yeah. Thanks for making me a better version of myself. I know you'll keep on doing that while we're married."
Sam tried his best not to look at Gabriel while he was speaking - he was sure that Gabriel would be laughing at him for getting all sappy and serious like that. But when he finished up and turned back to look at Gabriel, he saw that Gabriel hadn't been looking at him either. Instead, he'd been staring down at the wooden slats in the pier, biting his lip and shuffling awkwardly.
"So yeah. Now you go," Sam said, a tiny bit annoyed, after Gabriel didn't say anything for a minute.
"Right, right..." Gabriel's head snapped up, blinking fast, bringing himself back to the moment. He swallowed hard. "Sam. Sammy. Kiddo. Moose. Samsquatch. Samflower. The guy I have a million different nicknames for. Wouldn't bother to do that for just anyone, you know? You're a fucking nerd, but you're definitely the coolest nerd I've ever met. You put up with my shit, and I appreciate that, way more than you know, cause not that many people do. And you always help me out with school when I need it and you don't ever talk down to me which is just really cool of you, and we always have the best time when we hang out. Even when we fight, we get over it pretty quickly, cause, we know it's not worth it and we'd always be happier not fighting than fighting. And I like fighting so I don't say that about many people, you know? Basically what I'm trying to say is... I kinda see you as my best friend. And the only reason I even want to do senior year, is cause you're gonna be right there with me."
This time, it was Sam's turn to look away, completely speechless.
"You may now kiss the groom?" piped up the voice of their witness, who clearly just wanted this to be over already so that he could get back to his donuts.
Sam and Gabriel looked into each other's eyes for the first time all ceremony, if you could call it that.
"This is weird," Gabriel whispered.
"So weird," Sam whispered back, although really, he thought that the weirdest thing about it was that it didn't feel weird. It felt right. Of course he was kissing Gabriel at sunset at the end of a San Francisco pier. Where the hell else was he supposed to be?
The two of them leaned in close, and all of a sudden it was freshman year again. Sam was back in that very same bedroom with the very same impossibly fluffy Yorkshire terrier and the very same excitable art student in a flowery blouse and he wanted to kiss him. He'd wanted to kiss him back then, too, so much it hurt, but he hadn't been able to because he was young and scared and he wanted to see Gabriel again and not risk him running out of the room desperate to get away from Sam.
That wasn't something Sam had to worry about today. They were still the same two people with their faces a little too close together, but this time Sam was confident. He knew Gabriel wasn't going to run off on him.
And that was all the knowledge he needed to lean in those last few inches and finally touch his lips to Gabriel's, intending to keep it soft and sweet but unable to help himself from getting carried away, two years of not kissing melting into one passionate kiss that made Sam feel warm and happy and alive. He stopped thinking anything through, letting the kiss make its own decisions, closing his eyes against the wind and tangling one hand in Gabriel's hair to bring him closer, wrapping the other arm around Gabriel's back and bending them both over so he was dipping him, holding them in the position for a few seconds before righting them both back on their feet and pulling away, grinning.
Gabriel stared at him in shock for a moment, but then he grinned too, and their grins became huge, full laughs that had them both clutching each other as they tried to calm down and come to terms with the reality of what they'd just done.
--
Three signatures later, and they were done, the two of them walking in silent agreement away from the pier.
"So what do we do now?" Sam's voice sounded small in the huge expanse of the city, like he was completely at a loss for where to go from here. He'd kissed Gabriel. And not a quick kiss, not a 'look at us, we just got a fuckton of free money from our school' celebratory peck - an actual, real kiss, the kind of mind-melting kiss Sam had never given anyone before. And he wasn't quite sure how he'd let that happen.
"Typically, a honeymoon. Consummate the marriage," Gabriel suggested with his typical eyebrow waggle, though he couldn't quite manage the same joking tone that usually came to him so easily.
"Yeah, where the hell are we going to honeymoon?" Sam snorted. "As much as I'd love to take you to Hawaii and keep you in the lifestyle to which you've become accustomed, we're poor college students. Which is the reason we're here in the first place."
"But you wouldn't be opposed to honeymooning with me, if you did have the money?" Gabriel asked hopefully.
Sam smiled, his heart beating faster. "Yeah. Going on holiday with you. Of course I would."
And he would. In a heartbeat. He'd married the guy, there weren't a lot of other boundaries to cross after that point.
Instinctively, he shuffled closer to Gabriel, walking right beside him so that their shoulders were almost touching.
Gabriel slipped his hand in Sam's.
"Keeping up appearances," he confirmed when Sam turned to give him a questioning look.
"Right, yeah, gotta keep things believable. Me too," Sam agreed, giving an alternative explanation for why he was squeezing Gabriel's hand tight.
"I can be convincing. Did theater in high school," Gabriel informed him, turning to give Sam a kiss on the cheek.
"Yeah, you were Alice in Alice in Wonderland. I remember this story. You looked adorable in the dress." Sam leaned over to ruffle Gabriel's hair.
"But you did cool stuff too. Weren't you in Taming of the Shrew? Some fancy Shakespeare thing. And you refused to show me the pictures." Gabriel nuzzled into Sam's shoulder.
"Damn right I did. I look terrible in period costume." This was accompanied by a quick peck on the lips.
"But I'm your husband. You should show me these things." Gabriel pouted, leaning in to--
Sam snapped round to stare at Gabriel. "Say that again."
"You should show me these things."
"No. Say the other thing. The word... that begins with H."
"You're my husband."
Sam stopped dead in his tracks, right under a streetlight, at the exact moment it switched on in the half-darkness, and it felt so appropriate, the streetlight lighting up the world around them (lighting up Gabriel) at the exact moment that everything became so clear for Sam.
"A-are you okay?" Gabriel stuttered.
Sam tried to nod and shake his head at the same time. He opened his mouth to try to explain, but it wasn't working, there was already nothing that made sense about this so it was stupid to try to rationalize anything, he couldn't even begin to get his thoughts in order quite yet, everything was so new and so fast and all he could do was--
He grabbed Gabriel's cheeks and pulled him in for another kiss, messier than the first one, possibly even more passionate, and this time he dragged a loud moan out of Gabriel, making him smile in triumph before the kiss had even finished, and maybe he didn't have to explain himself just yet. Unlike everything else that had happened today, talking was something they could take as much time as they needed over.
That thought made Sam slow the kiss into a simple soft slide of lips on lips, because all the urgency was suddenly gone. This lasted for a few more easy, contented minutes, before the two pulled apart, staring into each other's wide eyes as though they were completely alone and not in the middle of a busy city.
"So, you know how we agreed to that divorce?" Gabriel whispered, resting his forehead against Sam's.
"Hmm?" Sam hummed against Gabriel's lips.
"I think we should try to work on our marriage."